


the last surrender

by hesselives



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Ending, Angst, Gen, M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:05:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesselives/pseuds/hesselives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows they won't be going home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last surrender

Always, he listens for the sound of thunder.

The shaking of the ground and the sky had once filled him with a kind of peace. It had meant that for every step he took, every deep imprint he left in the earth, he wasn’t alone. In a time when time held no meaning for him, it had meant that wherever he went, through the western hills or the southern plains, he had the comfort of a slow and steady rumbling that wasn’t his. It had meant that Bertholdt was there beside him. He may wield the strength of solid rock that lay miles and miles beneath them, but it always seemed to him that Bertholdt was akin to a primeval god, a towering manifest of the force and fury of the earth. They had seemed invincible then. The guardians of a new world.

Now, here in the Forest, he listens for the sound of thunder. But it is the thunder of hooves and the lightning of blades, and he trembles to hear them.

+++++

He and Bertholdt. Ymir and Eren. They each possess a power too great and terrible to comprehend, but his heart is heavy with the knowledge that they are still children. Battle-hardened warriors, tasked to bring the last of humanity to its knees. But they are children all the same—frightened and alone. They had not known grief until they had lost too much. They had not known agony until they had suffered too greatly. They had asked the world why, and did not understand its silence. He had remembered this when he could see it in the faces of everyone around him, the deathly faces of children turned soldiers, and he could not endure it.

But Bertholdt had forgotten.

_You are not who you were!_ Bertholdt had cried out in anger.

And he could only say in return, _None of us are._

+++++

Dusk falls and he watches as Bertholdt tries to sleep, his long limbs folding and unfolding against the roots of an ancient tree. They’ve eluded capture for one more day, and still Bertholdt is silent, the air around him growing dense and muted. These days Bertholdt thins his lips and says nothing, but his gaze speaks all too clearly of pain and contempt. Every plea and argument made is lost in the face of such resistance, and he fears this is one wall he cannot breach. He looks on helplessly as Bertholdt withdraws further and further away, as vaporous as the steam that rises from his titan form. He doesn’t understand it at all.

_Don’t disappear, Bertl_ , he pleads silently. _Don’t leave me behind._

+++++

_Two children stand together, side by side. They are told that they were chosen to do what must be done. They are told it is an honor beyond measure that will render their deeds legend and their names immortal. They are told that they will set the world afire until only skeletons remain._

_The boys smile at each other, one shy one bold, and dream of becoming heroes._

_Memory is a fragile thing._

+++++

Bertholdt drifts behind them, pale and quiet, but no less focused.

They have a mission to complete. If they didn’t – he breathes in sharply – if they didn’t, he isn’t so sure that Bertholdt would have saved him. And that is a thought too painful to bear.

“Bertl,” he says, hesitating.

Bertholdt looks up with a shuttered gaze, and it hurts him to see it—to know he is the cause of it. He wants to make everything between them all right again.

Clenching his fists, he says in a low voice, “I haven’t forgotten, you know. You can hate me. You can think I’m weak, that I failed you, and—maybe you’re right. But I have never once forgotten about our promise.” He struggles to hold back his tears. “I could never do that to you.”

After a long tense moment, he curls into himself and turns away, throat aching, feeling the deepest parts of him – _sunlight, laughing, small hands clasped together, always together_ – crumbling into pieces, breaking apart, and he’s just lost the only person he had ever—

He startles as two hands suddenly appear and frame his face. He looks up in despair to see Bertholdt’s solemn countenance, and holds in a sob as he presses their foreheads together.

“Reiner,” Bertholdt says quietly, voice hoarse from disuse. His breath wisps softly over him. “Come back to me.”

Upon hearing it, he surges forward to press his lips against Bertholdt’s, hands fisting in his jacket, pulling him closer to feel his warmth and solidity again. What he could never put into words, he pours into this. His sorrow, his apology, his heart.

And some broken part of him starts to mend again, when Bertholdt wraps his arms tightly around him and buries his face in his hair, crying silently.

The others had always called him the strong one, the reliable one. But none of them had truly known Bertholdt, whose strength is as vast as the sea, and it holds him like a shelter in a storm.

+++++

The days grow long and they keep running. 

Exhaustion creeps into their bones, hollowing them out bit by bit. They begin to feel it when the wind chills their skin and their hearts pound too quickly. With every sound that breaks the silence, weary eyes abruptly turn fever-bright and they crouch like wolves, one hand between their teeth, ready to break skin and taste blood.

But it takes away more than they ever thought possible, and it does not spare them when they are finally found.

The legion is relentless, circling tighter around them, riders below weaving between trees and scouts above flying down in a hiss of wires.

He cries out in disbelief when he sees the half-body of the Colossus burst out of a pillar of steam, a horrible sight of twisted bones and falling flesh, crashing down fast from fifty meters above, back muscles split open to reveal a frightened Bertholdt frantically ripping rotting ligaments away. And Bertholdt lands hard on the ground, bones breaking on impact, skin burned raw. With fear in his eyes, Bertholdt screams at him, _go! run, you have to get out of here!_ But he shakes his head, crying, and desperately cradles Bertholdt to his chest. He has never run away from him and he will not do it now. His teeth rip into his own hand and he shocks his body into transformation, adrenaline racing through his nerves, muscles and tissue whipping into cords, bursting up fifteen meters high, armor groaning like tectonic plates.

He breathes rapidly and tries to stay upright, feeling his armor become brittle, pieces already chipping and breaking away. And he knows instinctively that it is no longer a question of fight or flight. Immediately curling his hand around Bertholdt, as gently as he could manage, he ignores the weakening strain of his muscles and launches into a run.

But he only makes it several meters before he screams, body collapsing to the ground as the ligaments behind his knees are sliced wide open. Unimaginable pain rips through his body and the intensity of it nearly kills him. He struggles to get to his knees, one hand shielding Bertholdt’s unconscious form, the other raised to cover his own neck—but a flashing blade with terrifying precision drives deep into his wrist and rips out its tendons. Steam erupts from the wound, and he trembles as he tries to regenerate, arm flinging out blindly to scatter the incoming scouts. Distantly, he hears the hiss of wires and the clatter of hooks as they strike his armor.

Futility overcomes him, and he cries out against it.

_No. It can’t be—  
It’s not supposed to be like this._

But in the end, he finds that he too is made of only flesh and bone.

+++++

The legion shows him no mercy, bringing down upon him the full wrath of humanity.

He refuses to speak, suffering blow after torturous blow without striking back, and because of that they no longer fear him.

But they do not know what they had wrought by killing Bertholdt.

+++++

When they realize that they will learn nothing from him, they put a blade to his neck and force him onto his knees. On a clear day in a grassy knoll, he’s surrounded by the remaining members of the legion, their faces burned into his memory, and he bows his head to hide a fateful smile.

Today will be a day of execution.

Commander Irvin’s voice rings out, firm and steady. “Let it be known that Reiner Braun is found guilty of treason against humanity, in violation of the oaths he had sworn in service to the Corps, to the Legion, and to the King.”

Irvin then turns to him, and says with a chilling finality, “Do you have any last words?”

He looks up to meet Irvin’s piercing gaze. This is the man who destroyed his heart. The man who took away his home.

He closes his eyes and feels no fear.

He listens for the sound of thunder.

_Bertl, I’m coming back to you._

He raises his head to the sky and unleashes a roar of fury that shakes the earth, the full force of his grief surging out from the depths of his being, and he burns hotter than he ever had before, steam amassing thicker and thicker around him, the pressure crushing him from within, and he feels his bones breaking, his organs splitting apart, the smell of searing flesh, a final gasp, and then—

An explosion of fire.

The ground ignites in a sweeping inferno, towering flames swelling higher than any wall, exploding violently outward, scorching everything in its path, howling on and on until it devours every breath of life it finds in an unforgiving blaze.

It is a death sentence. And in its wake, a terrible silence.

.  
.  
.

_Did you know, Bertl? If you can see far enough past the river delta, beyond those trees over there, that’s our home. It’s not so far away after all. We’ll go back together soon, won’t we? We’ll walk through the hills and the plains, and it’ll be like we never left at all. We only have to do one thing. Just this one thing and then— we’ll be free._


End file.
